22 Facts About ESRB

Once a game is rated, the ESRB maintains a code of ethics for the advertising and promotion of video games—ensuring that marketing materials for games are targeted to appropriate audiences.

Alongside its game rating operation, the ESRB provides certification services for online privacy on websites and mobile apps.

The formation of the ESRB was officially announced to Congress on July 29,1994.

The ESRB was the first rating system to use "descriptors" with brief explanations of the content contained in a game, as the ESRB found that parents wanted to have knowledge of this type of content before they purchased games for their children.

Alongside its efforts to classify video games, the ESRB formed a division known as Entertainment Software Rating Board Interactive, which rated internet content using a similar system to its video game ratings.

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Raters were formerly hired on a part-time basis, but in 2007, ESRB transitioned to a team of seven full-time raters, who all live in the New York City area.

Besides evaluating games, the ESRB oversees the marketing and advertising materials released for games that have undergone the ESRB rating process or in progress.

The ESRB will go back and forth with publishers when there is objectionable elements within the marketing to correct these issues.

The ESRB phased out the Short Form for digital-only games, instead directing those developers and publishers to use the similar free questionnaire-driven IARC program, which was being adopted beyond mobile app stores, including the Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store, as a requirement for posting, and which automatically are accepted by several national-level rating boards, including the ESRB.

Alongside this, ESRB introduced a "value tier" for the Long Form review process for games developed at lower budgets, with a cost of $3000 for obtaining the retail rating.

ESRB ratings are primarily identified through icons, which are displayed on the packaging and promotional materials for a game.

The ESRB has taken action against video game distributors who use the ratings icons in advertising without authorization or having actually been issued the rating by the board.

In Canada, ESRB ratings are enforced under provincial laws by film ratings boards in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.

In March 2013, the ESRB eased certain restrictions on the promotion of M-rated games.

ESRB has considered its system to be effective, due in part to initiatives by the Board to promote enforcement and consumer awareness of the system, and efforts by retailers to prevent the sale of M-rated games to minors.

ESRB has often been accused of not rating certain games, such as Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series, harshly enough for violence and other related themes, and for lacking transparency in certain aspects of the ratings process.

An ESRB representative stated that the Board uses the AO rating when warranted, even due to violence, and that in most occasions, publishers would edit the game to meet the M rating to ensure wide commercial availability instead of keeping the AO rating.

ESRB President Patricia Vance argued that applying self-censorship to ensure marketability was a compromise that is "true in every entertainment medium", but still believed that the idea of the AO rating eventually becoming acceptable would be a good thing for the ESRB system.

In October 2017, in response to growing criticism of the loot box model for video game microtransactions, the ESRB stated their opinion that they were not a form of gambling.

The ESRB added that games that contain actual wagering of real money would hold the Adults Only rating.

Patrica Vance stated that the ESRB avoided references to specific types of microtransactions, so that the advisory label could be understood by parents unaware of specific details.

ESRB is officially recognized, implemented and used in the three major countries of North America: Canada, Mexico and the United States.